A/N: This chapter's got more explicit sex (Capsicoul) in it. It's a continuation of the de-aging scenario from Chapter 15, where Tony has returned to his appropriate age but is having some awkward moments around his two 'dads.'

To say that things have been awkward between Tony, Steve and Phil is something of an understatement. The process of getting Tony back to his appropriate age had taken a month and a half, during which time Phil and Steve had been the baby's primary minders, aside from Pepper. It's hardly surprising Tony's having a hard time trying to figure out where he stands with all of them now—six weeks of having your closest friends changing your dirty diapers will do that.

But even more perplexing is the fact that Tony seems to have kept some of the things from his time as an infant with him. Little things, at first, like the fact that he'll usually choose to sit by Phil and Steve on the sofa, or that when it's time for him to sleep, he'll walk to the room they'd had his crib in without thinking.

Then it starts to get worse.

"Fuck, right there," Phil pants, his hips lifting off the mattress.

They've been busy with work and with Tony, which means their sex life had basically come to a halt for weeks. So, being as thoughtful as he is, Steve had decided to surprise Phil. He surprised him with a blindfold, a pair of padded wrist cuffs, a bottle of lube and a special little something with four different speeds and five different pulse patterns that currently has his toes curling and his mouth uttering profanities that would make a sailor blush.

He can't see his partner, but he feels Steve run a possessive hand up his inner thigh and knows from the touch and the sudden shift to a different setting that Steve likes what he sees. He definitely knows Steve likes it when the other man leans over him and he feels the soldier's erection pushing against his thigh, hot and hard. The toy is dialed down to its lowest setting, teasing him.

"I can't decide if I'd like to make you come with the toy or if I'd rather wait until I'm inside you," Steve says, kissing his chest, his shoulder, his neck.

"You're not going to have a choice in another minute," Phil says breathily, biting his lower lip to stifle a moan.

"Mm, good point," Steve says kissing the corner of his mouth. "As much as I like watching you come all over yourself without me touching you… we'll save it for another time."

Phil shivers and waits patiently, trying to relax himself as Steve removes the toy. He's left tied to the headboard with the blindfold still in place, waiting for Steve to proceed. His breath sounds too loud as he feels the bed dip between his legs. Steve's hands slide up his thighs, pushing them apart, before the soldier hooks his arms beneath Phil's knees.

He's not quite as open as he usually is, but the excess lube makes up for that as Steve takes his time pushing in. As much as Steve wants it, he restrains himself and rocks his hips slowly, apparently doing his very best to drive Phil up a wall. The fact that Phil can't see him and has to rely on hearing alone just makes the situation all the more sensual. Every touch seems like it's magnified, like his body is ten times more sensitive than it usually is, which makes it very difficult to keep himself quiet.

"Have I mentioned how good you look when you're all tied down for me?" Steve asks, teeth nipping at the agent's throat.

"Once or twice," Phil answers, tugging briefly at his restraints. "You may have mentioned it."

"I thought about using the gag tonight, too," Steve tells him.

Phil is about to comment on that, but he's cut off when Steve presses their lips together. He parts his lips in anticipation and when Steve deepens the kiss, he mentally congratulates himself for learning to read the other man so well. Steve's especially worked up tonight, attacking his partner's mouth like it's something to be conquered and wringing eager moans out of the agent. Phil is very far from complaining about Steve's enthusiasm. There's a little more power behind his thrusts now, a little more force as he pulls away from their kiss.

"You know how much I like it when you wear it. The noises you let yourself make because you don't have to hold them back, worrying that someone might hear you," Steve recites as he snaps his hips. "But I want to hear you, Phil. I want to hear you moan and cry and beg like I know you want to. Can you do that for me?"

The thing is, Phil does want to. And at this point, he doesn't care if Nick Fury himself happens to hear him because he knows how much Steve gets off on hearing him and he's going to try his damnedest to get the soldier as worked up as possible. So he informs him that yes, yes he can, and lets out the moan he's been holding in just to prove it. Steve groans, thrusting so hard that Phil probably would have been driven up against the headboard were it not for the bruising grip on his hips keeping him anchored.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Captain, but Mister Stark is on the line for you."

"Can you tell him I'm busy?" Steve pants, not letting up one bit.

"I'm afraid he says it's urgent, sir. He's requesting to speak to Agent Coulson."

Steve slows his thrusts, letting out a disappointed huff of air. "Phil?"

"Put him on," Phil sighs.

"Phil?" Tony asks. "You there?"

"Right here, Mr. Stark," Phil answers, trying to even out his tone so it doesn't sound like he was interrupted in the middle of being fucked senseless. "What's the emergency."

"…I can't sleep."

"Alright," Phil says patiently. He has to snap his mouth shut suddenly when Steve starts moving again, rolling his hips and thumbing the head of the agent's cock. To his credit, Phil only sounds the slightest bit strained when he speaks again. "Perhaps if you—"

"Ineedyoutosingmethesong."

"Wha—AT?" Phil asks, the end of the words nearly shouted as Steve delivers a series of hard, shallow thrusts.

"I said… I need you to sing me the song. It's… look, I don't know, it's the only thing that helps me sleep now," Tony admits, sounding uncomfortable about the whole thing.

"This…" Phil says. He swallows thickly, trying to regain control. "This isn't the best time, Mr. Stark."

"I know I woke you and believe me, I don't want to do this anymore than you do but—"

Phil bites down hard on his lower lip, trying to keep quiet, but Steve's lubed up his hand and is swiftly stroking him in time with his thrusts. He really can't help it if the moan trapped in his mouth is so loud that even behind his lips and over the line, Tony can hear it.

"Oh my god, you two are fucking."

"Mr. Stark—"

Steve catches him off guard, thrusting with just the right amount of force at just the right angle and he gasps loudly. His attempt to smother his noise only turns it into a loud whimper and he's not sure if he could possibly feel any more embarrassed by hearing himself make that kind of noise.

"Oh my god, that's gross. Ugh!"

It's not the way that Phil would have wanted it, but it gets Tony to hang up in an instant. It's probably a good thing, considering neither of them are particularly quiet after. Phil shouts when he comes and Steve, chasing his own release, fucks him like it's going out of style until he abruptly stills. A grunt few ragged thrusts and Steve's coming in him, groaning in satisfaction.

Phil's still catching his breath when Steve slowly pulls out and tugs the blindfold away. Steve looks as he always does after they've had sex; flushed, hair mussed and positively glowing. If Phil ever had any doubts about whether Steve was satisfied with their relationship, he only has to look at the slightly fuzzy, stupidly fond look his partner is giving him now.

"I think I liked you better when you were a shy virgin," Phil complains.

"No you didn't," Steve says with a laugh, kissing the corner of his mouth as he begins unclasping the restraints.

"No, I didn't," Phil agrees.

Steve sits him up and, as always, begins checking for injury. He knows he can get particularly enthusiastic and it's a constant worry of his that he'll hurt Phil and the agent won't tell him.

"How badly do you think we've traumatized Stark?" Phil asks as Steve rubs his wrists.

"No worse than he deserves," Steve snorts.

"I never took you as the exhibitionist type," Phil notes.

Steve coughs. "I guess I got a little carried away."

"Well… you did essentially expose him to the rough equivalent of walking in on your parents having sex."

"He interrupted. He said it was urgent. That wasn't urgent. What was urgent was what we were doing, since we haven't had a chance to be urgent in over a month."

"Mm. I think we're going to have to talk about this."

"I was hoping you wouldn't say that."

The talk doesn't really happen, not the way they want it to. They don't really get beyond a polite exchange of apologies. So when Phil finds Tony sitting hunched over on the communal floor's sofa, he hangs back a moment. He'd been up doing late night paper work, long after everyone else has gone to sleep, and upon discovering his coffee mug was in need of refreshing, wandered down to the kitchen. He stands in the doorway, watching the other man intently for a moment before softly padding over.

"Mr. Stark?"

Tony's head shoots up and even in the dim light, Phil can see him wiping hurriedly at his eyes.

"Oh, uh… hey. Burning the candle at both ends, I see," Tony quips.

"It was a busy day," Phil answers with a shrug. He nods toward Tony. "I figured you'd be as exhausted as the others."

"Yeah, well, you know… all that adrenaline," Tony says, ducking his head as he wrings his hands.

Phil sets his mug down on the counter and walks around the sofa. He doesn't miss the other man's flinch as he takes a seat.

"Why don't you tell me what's bothering you," Phil suggests, leaning back in his seat.

"There's nothing bothering me, okay?" Tony says, sounding frustrated. "Get back to work."

"Mr. Stark," Phil says, his tone making it clear he's not going to budge.

"I just can't sleep!" Tony snaps. "There's nothing wrong with me, I just can't sleep. That's all. That's it. End of story."

Phil purses his lips thoughtfully. When Pepper returns from her business trip, it's clear they're all going to have to sit down for a long talk. Tony's de-aging seems to have had more of an effect on him than they'd thought. Phil and Steve had spent a lot of time with Baby Tony, and once he'd been returned to his rightful age, that had stopped. Apparently that had been something of a mistake.

"I understand you've been having difficulty adjusting," Phil says. "There's no shame in that."

Tony huffs a bitter laugh at that. "I called you in the middle of the night, while you and Steve were having sex, because I couldn't sleep without you singing to me. If that isn't the definition of 'fucked up,' then I don't know what is."

"Admittedly that was a bit… awkward for everyone," Phil says, clearing his throat. "But this is clearly something we all need to work on."

"No shit," Tony says.

"So, let's start by getting you to sleep," Phil says. "And when Pepper gets back, we'll all sit down and talk about how best to handle this. Alright?"

Tony nods slowly but doesn't look up. "I'm not going to be able to sleep, though. I've tried everything."

"Not even if I sing to you?" Phil asks.

Tony looks heartily embarrassed by the suggestion, but doesn't refuse. So Phil sings. It should probably be more uncomfortable than it is, but he's been doing it for almost two months already. And it's to help a friend with a problem for which he is partly responsible.

Gradually Tony begins to relax, and as he relaxes he tips closer and closer towards Phil. Eventually the genius is out like a light, his arms around Phil's middle and his face pressed to the agent's side. Phil is only humming by this point, so it's easy to hear someone shuffling behind the sofa. Steve leans over the back and presses a kiss to the side of his face.

"You got him to sleep?" the soldier whispers.

"Help me get him to bed?" Phil whispers back.

Steve agrees to that and circles the couch. They slowly disentangle Tony from Phil's side and with a gentleness that most people might not think him capable of, Steve lifts Tony from the sofa. The genius mumbles drowsily, stirring slightly as they begin walking towards the lift.

"Steve pummedown," Tony mumbles, even as he tightens his grip around the soldier's neck.

"It's alright," Steve assures him. "We've got you."

Tony grunts something that might be agreement before promptly drifting off again.

Tony and Steve like to spar once in a while. The way Steve sees it, there's more to iron Man than a guy in a suit and Tony Stark should be able to defend himself when his armored counterpart is not in the picture. Today, though, something is different. Usually Tony is full of taunts, begrudgingly going about the task of getting his ass handed to him when he runs his mouth instead of sticking to Steve's instructions. But today, there's none of that. Tony is following his directions to the letter, and more than that… he seems to be enjoying it.

And now that he thinks of it, hadn't Tony been the one to suggest sparring today? Tony never suggests it. If anything, he does whatever he can to get out of it.

"Are you actually enjoying this?" Steve asks with a laugh.

"Yeah, so what if I am?" Tony snorts with a grin. "I haven't been able to do this in two months. Babies aren't great sparring partners, or didn't you notice?"

"Oh, I don't know," Steve says, catching a punch. "You had a pretty strong grip for a little guy."

"You've just got a soft spot for kids," Tony says, rolling his eyes. "I know your type; house with a yard, white picket fence, a dog, a couple of kids, a gorgeous wife… well, maybe not that last one, but the rest of it."

"And you think there's something wrong with that?" Steve asks, pinning Tony to the mat.

"No, it's just sickeningly Americana," Tony tells him, squirming to get loose. "You're—"

Steve is surprised when Tony suddenly cuts himself off with a laugh. His eyebrows rise nearly to his hairline when he understands what's just happened.

"Are you ticklish?" he asks.

"What? No," Tony insists.

"You're ticklish," Steve insists.

"Don't you do it," Tony warns him.

Steve grins. It turns out Tony isn't just ticklish, he's very ticklish. Enough so that he's howling with laughter as Steve takes advantage of that fact. But Tony fights back. Steve briefly wonders what people would say if they saw Captain America and Iron Man having a tickle fight in the gym. The lighthearted moment comes to a screeching halt when Tony wheezes out a giggled plea for him to stop. But that's not what actually gets Steve to stop. It's what Tony calls him.

"Dad, stop!"

The very second it's out of Tony's mouth, they stop what they're doing and Steve, not thinking, drops the other man flat on his ass. They gawk at each other for a moment before Steve remembers himself.

"Sorry, Tony, I didn't mean to drop you," Steve says, holding a hand out.

"No. It's cool. It was, uh… yeah," Tony says, accepting his hand up.

They shuffle awkwardly before making their way to the locker room. Steve realizes suddenly that he might have just crossed the line. When Tony was a baby, he'd spent a lot of time doing typical baby play like tickling, blowing raspberries and peek-a-boo. But now Tony's an adult again. And it's awkward.

"Did you call me—"

"Yes."

"Okay."

"Can we just forget it?"

"Okay."

"Okay."

"Okay then."

Awkward.

It all really comes to a head a few days later during a mission. Things are going fairly well, Phil thinks, as he steps out from his cover to get Natasha's back. That is, until he hears a startled cry over the comm line.

"Dad, look out!"

It's only as a robot to his right is blown to bits that he realizes Tony had been calling to him. Tony had just called him 'dad.' Later, he'll be angry with himself for allowing it to distract him as much as it had, because in the next three seconds there's an explosion and the sky is where the ground should be and the ground is where the sky should be.

He gets the wind knocked out of him when he hits the ground, but is fairly quick to recover. He gets to his feet when a sharp pain shoots through his side and he's sent staggering into a nearby wall. He hears another frantic cry of "Dad!" as he presses a hand to his side and soon enough both Steve and Tony are in front of him.

Steve's hands are on him immediately and the pressure applied to his side has him seeing stars and his legs wobbling beneath him. The two Avengers lower him until he's sitting with his back propped against the wall and when he looks down, he sees the bleeding that Steve is desperately trying to stop, watches it spill between the fingers of his gloves, the two shades of red clashing terribly.

"I'm fine," Phil insists.

"You're anything but," Steve says. "Tony, I need you to get him out of here."

"You need to get back out there," Phil says. It's getting harder to breathe, though. "I'll be fine here. Just leave me a gun and—"

"Phil, shut your goddamn mouth," Steve snaps. "Tony. Now. We'll manage without you."

"You got it," Tony says. "Be back in a flash."

Phil would protest more, but quite suddenly he's shooting upwards and apparently a rapid change in altitude and blood loss are not the best combination.

Phil laments the fact that he'd allowed himself to become distracted during their mission. This is mainly due to the fact that, even though he's completely fine, everyone is now treating him as though he's made of glass. It's a problem he ran into following Loki and it seems as though it's going to plague him for the rest of his life. Only Natasha and Clint spare him any mothering; Clint has declared the wound a scratch and Natasha hardly even acknowledges it at all. They've seen each other far worse too many times to molly coddle something this negligible.

Still, it's slowed him down a little and Bruce has more than once given him a firm talking to about how he's doing too much and he can't keep pulling stitches like this and how he'll get an infection and any number of things that Phil doesn't especially have time for. Apparently Nick trusts Bruce's word more than Phil's because the director puts him on light duty for the next two weeks, which does nothing to improve his mood.

"So," Tony says, approaching him where he sits on the sofa, "I don't suppose there's any chance you could forget what I called you, is there?"

"I think we're all going to have a very hard time forgetting that," Phil answers flatly.

Tony winces. Phil takes a deep breath.

"We need to talk," he says.

"Yeah. I think we do," Tony reluctantly admits, taking a seat on the sofa.

"First off: I believe I owe you an apology," Phil says.

Tony looks confused, so Phil explains.

"We weren't sure how long your de-aging would last. But that didn't mean we weren't going to take care of you as best we could," Phil says. He shifts in his seat. "I know about your history with Howard. By no means did I think that whatever time you spent as a child this time around could hope to correct how he treated you."

This is uncomfortable for both of them. This conversation requires that they put more of themselves out there than either of them would like. But it's the only way to fix this problem, isn't it?

"The thing is, I have… always wanted children of my own. But it just never happened," Phil tells him. "Shortly after you were de-aged, Steve found out and since then we've been… talking. About children. And I believe we both allowed ourselves to grow a little too close and a little too comfortable with our role as your caretakers. I had, vainly I think, hoped that giving you a better infancy this time around could help you heal. I allowed my desire to be a father to steer my actions and I can see now that I may have done more harm than good. I'm sorry, Tony."

Tony stares at him for a long while and Phil can honestly say he's not sure what the other man may have to say to him. He expects the usual flippancy, the trademark Tony Stark sarcasm to brush off any treading into emotional territory. He's surprised when he doesn't get it.

"I'm not going to say this situation isn't fucked up," Tony says. "Because, let's face it, it's really fucked up."

"It certainly is," Phil answered.

"But as far as I'm concerned, you didn't do anything wrong and neither did Steve," Tony says. "You said yourself that you know about me and dear old dad. What you were doing was…"

Tony stops, scrubs a hand over his face and repositions himself on the couch.

"Look, if you and Steve want to adopt a kid, please, go for it. Adopt twenty kids. I will build an extra wing for you and him and fifty kids if you want them," Tony tells him emphatically. "You want to know why I'm having a hard time readjusting? Because it's pretty shitty going from having you and him back to a reality where I remember that I had Howard. Because I would have killed to have you or him or both of you as a dad. So while this is about the weirdest thing I will ever say, you were a better father in two months than Howard was in two decades.

"Which is why if I'm having trouble leaving that behind, you can probably understand. I get that it's over and it has to stop and I think if we just… work on it a little, we can make that happen. We all just need to… let go."

"Right," Phil says simply. "I'm…"

For once Phil is speechless. How do you respond to something like that? Tony nudges him with his knee.

"Hey," Tony says. "You're an awesome dad. And if you do end up adopting, that kid is going to be the luckiest damn boy or girl in the world. Take it from me."

Phil shakes his head. This isn't how he had projected this conversation would go. It takes him a moment to get himself together, to swallow the lump that had annoyingly risen in his throat.

"Thank you. For everything you've just said," Phil says. "I don't know about your suggestion, but I'm glad to see I haven't given you any more issues to deal with."

"Well, I didn't say that," Tony snorts. "You're paying my therapy bills from now until forever."

"Says the billionaire."

"Don't you get smart with me."

"Watch your tone or I'll send you to your room."

"I'll tell Dad."

And if Steve walks in and wonders what's so funny, well, there's no harm letting him in on the joke. He's part of it, after all.